


Skeletal Remains

by brainofck



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-07
Updated: 2011-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:58:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainofck/pseuds/brainofck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A terrible, horrible stranded story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skeletal Remains

**Author's Note:**

> Major character death. I cannot emphasize this enough. When I was writing it I used to refer to it as the character death fic of doom.

Teal'c, Bra'tac, and a whole contingent of insurgent Jaffa leaders stood surrounded, disarmed, humiliated. Jacob and a handful of Tok'ra already lay dead on the ground, along with dozens of Jaffa who had died defending their rebellion.

SG-1 was bloody and bruised, but still alive - down and bound and completely helpless to do anything but watch the slaughter come to its final conclusion. The heel of a Jaffa boot ground between Jack's shoulder blades.

The end was anticlimactic, in a way. Staff blasts and death.

But not for SG-1.

Daniel was out cold. The last of the departing Jaffa unbound his hands and left them there with the dead.

* * *

They laid Teal'c and Bra'tac and Jacob side by side in their own graves, Teal'c in the middle.

Sam's face had been cold and hard. Weirdly expressionless.

He found it unnerving when she played the good little soldier. But that wasn't really fair, since he knew they were having the same reaction. A certain grief over their fallen comrades and loved ones, but even more an overwhelming desire to kill someone. Cleverly. Or painfully. Or even better - many someones in a perfect crossfire. He suspected his major's preference would be large explosions. Or a really satisfying strafing run.

Daniel had cried silently all morning until there were no more tears left. Then he was just silent.

* * *

"This is the best we're going to do, sir," she said.

The planet had been chosen for its lack of a Gate. All the participants in the meeting had arrived by ship. Almost all of the vessels had been demolished in the ambush, but they had found a tel'tac that would still fly. Barely.

"The hyperdrive is a total loss and the environmental systems are only just functional, but the navigation computer seems to be intact and the hull is spaceworthy."

"No hyperdrive," Daniel clarified.

She nodded.

"So, to put it technically," Jack said, "We're totally screwed."

"Not necessarily, sir," she began.

"This is what I like about you people," he said with a sort of grim positivism.

"According to the computer, there's a planetary system not too far from here with a Gate."

"How far is 'not too far?'" Daniel asked. The million dollar question.

"Two weeks at this thing's best speed. It'll be no fun with the environmental systems as they are, but assuming nothing goes wrong, we'll make it."

Daniel laughed. He sounded edgy. Bitter.

"Assuming nothing goes wrong?" he repeated. "I can't remember the last time something went right."

Jack thought of saying, _When they didn't kill us, too._ But on the heels of so much loss, it seemed like the wrong thing to say, so he didn't. They had only finished burying the dead that morning.

* * *

They had been breathing damp, foul, oxygen-depleted air for two weeks. They all had headaches – though the headaches _could_ have been from watching Sam flit constantly from CO2 scrubbers, to temperature control, to water recycling, to artificial gravity, and back again, in an endless cycle, for fourteen days in a row. The blue planet out the front window looked like paradise.

The closer they got, the more like home it started to feel. Satellites in orbit, but no sign of space traffic.

But no radio traffic either. That had made them all antsy.

"I don't like this at all," Sam said. Jack quietly agreed with her.

They were flying over the landscape, without challenge from local authorities.

And now they were making low passes over a large city, and it was starting to be pretty clear why nobody cared about the arrival of a strange ship from outer space.

As best they could tell from the sky, all that was left were the bones.

* * *

"We can't stay in here," Sam said heatedly. "And we will _never_ make it to another populated system in our lifetimes without hyperdrive."

Jack made a face.

"Fine. We go out and try to figure out what happened here. Look for supplies and anything that might let us repair this flying piece of crap. We treat the locals as hostiles until we're sure they aren't going to go all _Omega Man_ on us.

"Assuming there are any locals left," Daniel said grimly.

* * *

They found an airfield, and Sam tried to fix the hyperdrive using this and that of tools and technology the planet had to offer.

Jack and Daniel hunted the city, scavenging for anything useful.

They found lots of interesting stuff. And bones. Lots and lots of bones.

On the first day, Daniel found a major library right away, and Jack took almost perverse pleasure in making Daniel leave it behind. They were trying to be careful, avoid possible sources of biological contamination, not set themselves up for possible attack by survivors or whatever might have destroyed this planet.

They found some useful things and scurried back to Sam.

But as the days went by, they saw no sign of survivors, and none of them got sick and eventually it was business as usual to say goodbye to Sam over their breakfast and head into the city to explore the most interesting buildings.

Eventually, they had rounded up enough supplies that Jack was ready to let Daniel do his thing.

"So, Daniel. Library today?" he offered, as they began the now familiar hike into the heart of the town.

Daniel smiled a little and hefted his empty pack a bit on his shoulders.

"Nope."

They ended up in what was obviously a bookstore. A large one, like Borders or Barnes and Noble, but with bodies littering the floor and books with strange, unreadable print.

It didn't take Daniel long to find what he was looking for.

"The children's section, Daniel?"

His friend shrugged.

"I still haven't been able to get a clue about this language. Time to learn some basic nouns," he said. He made a beeline for the basket of board books in the corner.

* * *

Sam couldn't stop snickering, as she and Jack cooked dinner and Daniel poured over his hoard of children's books.

"You laugh now, but wait 'til the alien equivalent of _Dr. Seuss' ABC_ teaches me enough for me to find us a Stargate."

Sam laughed anyway.

Daniel pelted her with a pointy, hard, colorful book clearly about a trip to the zoo. Jack picked it up. He could use a good read.

* * *

"I don't get it," Jack complained, staring around the warehouse-sized store. "We just found the mother lode of booze. How can there not be beer?"

Daniel shrugged and continued browsing the wines.

* * *

They built campfires at night.

Alone on this lonely planet, it was comforting to build a fire near the foot of the ship's ramp, draw up a few alien lawn chairs or a log, and create a circle of heat and space and humanity to ward off the empty night. The smell of woodsmoke was comforting.

These nights, they didn't talk about much. Daniel was making little to no progress building a vocabulary big enough to actually read something. He had instead resorted to sifting through the library by brute strength, hoping to find maps or pictures that would lead them to the Stargate, starting with what appeared to be the reference room. At the beginning, Daniel used to bring interesting books back with him to talk about delightedly, full of his usual intellectual curiosity in the face of certain doom. Those events had become fewer and fewer until they stopped, as Daniel found nothing that would help them get any closer to getting home. Jack thought Daniel deliberately left his archaeologist's excitement behind when he came back to camp, since Sam tended to get irritated these days when he rambled on about possible links to Earth civilizations and cultures.

Sam was worn and tired. She started her days looking fatigued, and ended them snappish and frustrated. So it surprised him when she was the one who broke the eerie silence of the night.

"So what did it?" Sam asked.

He and Daniel both knew what "it" was without having to ask.

"Something big," Jack suggested. "I've been thinking an airborn agent, since it killed a whole hell of a lot of people, not to mention apparently everything else that breathed, pretty damned fast."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "Nobody ran. There wasn't any panic or looting. Nobody rioted. They all just fell down and died on the spot."

"Not everybody," Daniel said quietly.

"What?!" Jack nearly shouted in alarm.

"No, no! Not survivors!" Daniel hastened to correct the false impression. "There were people who ran. And not everybody died on the spot."

He had their attention.

He shrugged and sipped his wine. "I've noticed whenever we go into a residential building with a lot of levels. There are more bodies on the upper floors than there are below, particularly in the upper part of the stairwells."

"That's true," Jack agreed slowly. He could see it now. Sometimes the upper landings could get pretty crowded.

"Plus, people jumped."

Sam, who wasn't as familiar with the town, looked startled.

"Jumped?" she repeated.

"Yeah. All around tall buildings we see glass broken out of the upper windows and very untidy bone scatter patterns on the ground. Like the victims smashed into the ground and their bodies were predated on after they broke apart."

Jack nodded. He had noticed the jumpers, too, now that Daniel mentioned it. Still...

"It couldn't have been a predator, though," Jack objected. "These people weren't hunted down. They collapsed in heaps. The bones are in neat little piles. And it must have happened basically simultaneously everywhere."

"I agree. The state of decay of the bodies is almost exactly the same across the entire city. Across species. Everywhere. Perfectly clean, smooth bones, undisturbed by predators, or weather. But when you look at the bones carefully... I think they were _cleaned_."

Daniel met his eyes across the fire, and Jack was suddenly frightened. Daniel had a haunted look. The fear flitted across Daniel's face, then was gone, but Jack saw it.

"I think they were attacked and devoured by insects," Daniel said quietly. "Maybe some kind of aggressive beetle. I looked at some of the bones under a big microscope over at the university..." Jack wondered if Daniel had just used handy samples from one of the lab chairs.

"Bugs?" Jack asked. Sam looked around reflexively. The night suddenly seemed a lot less friendly. "That's not possible. How could bugs have gotten the whole place that fast?"

Daniel shrugged.

"Sam asked. That's my best guess. Bugs that ate every land animal on the planet. In a hurry."

"That sounds like a weapon," Jack said.

"It sure does," Sam agreed. "And I'm totally creeped out now. I'm going in."

So they packed up the alien lawn chairs and put out the fire and went in. It was a relief when the ramp closed behind him.

They spent the next several nights inside.

* * *

It took him 100 days to give up on Edora. But on Edora he was alone, among people who told him that hope was a luxury, a waste of time, where life depended on hard work and sweat and strong backs. A day spent digging for a way home was a day wasted. He had moved on. He wasn't proud of that. He had given up, but they hadn't and because of that, he wasn't on Edora anymore.

But here, he wasn't alone. He could depend on his kids to tell him when it was time to give up. And it had taken Sam three times 100 days, but the day had finally come.

Sam strolled down the shallow ramp from the ship and casually dropped the handful of crystals onto the pavement, where they shattered into dozens of pieces and dust.

She kept walking away from them, over the hill and out of sight, back towards the river they had been using to bathe.

Daniel looked at the sharp, glinting shards on the ground with slightly raised eyebrows. A painful reminder of their lost fourth.

"I guess she's done," Daniel said mildly.

* * *

"So. Retirement," he said.

Jack just looked at him. Daniel waved his arms in a vague gesture.

"This is it."

"Nah. We've still got Plan C."

"A systematic aerial survey of the _entire planet_ in hopes of just finding the Gate? Jack, that's not a plan. That's a hobby – no, an obsession – until we all agree to a place to settle down. Maybe a nice lakeside villa where you could fish and Sam can putter and I could write."

"You're just giving up, then?" Jack asked him. Daniel made an exasperated sound.

"I gave up on the Stargate months ago, Jack, I told you that. These people might have come from Earth, but it was a _very_ long time ago and their written language isn't like anything I've ever seen. Without someone to talk to, I knew in forty-eight hours that our only hope was for Sam to fix the hyperdrive. We're stuck here."

Jack would never have thought that Daniel would give up quicker than he had.

"So."

"So what?" Jack replied.

"Retirement," Daniel repeated.

Jack looked around.

"Well, setting aside the planet-killing plague or nasty weaponized superbugs or whatever, there could be worse places. Though I figured retirement would include hockey. And beer."

"I guarantee you once we pick a spot to stay, I can make you beer."

Jack nodded thoughtfully.

"And we can probably put together a little hockey. We've got unlimited miles on that thing," Daniel gestured toward their flying mobile home. "We can pick our frozen lake or whatever anytime you want."

"You play? You never said!"

"Of course I don't. But," Daniel spread his hands, "All the time in the world."

"Good point."

"And of course, there's Sam."

"Yup. Carter and you. Company could be worse, too."

"No. I meant _Sam_. Don't try to tell me that she hasn't figured high in your retirement fantasies all these years."

Jack was so surprised that Daniel would actually say the forbidden words that for a moment he didn't know how to reply.

"Come on, Jack. Oh. Don't look at me like that. What's to stop you?"

"Well, for one thing, we're still in the field. I'm the CO here," he ground out. "Not really appropriate to proposition my junior officers."

"Give it a rest, Jack. _'Weaponized superbugs aside'_ , it's just the three of us. Probably forever. I think it's time to rearrange our priorities."

Jack stared at the more and more familiar stars overhead.

"OK. Let's talk about priorities. What if she turned me down?"

Daniel snorted.

"Next?"

"OK. It's just the three of us. Probably forever. If…" he couldn't bring himself to say 'Sam' in this context. But he couldn't really say 'Carter' either. "If – she- said yes, where would that leave you?"

"Happy that two of the most important people in my life were happier." Jack could hear the smile in Daniel's voice. He meant it. And that pissed Jack off.

"Give me a break. We sleep about 20 feet apart. It would be wrong."

"Privacy's a modern invention, Jack. Humans been dealing with these issues since the dawn of humanity. We're all adults. You guys will do your thing. Maybe I'll need to do my thing. And we'll all pretend not to notice and it'll work itself out."

"You say that now," Jack muttered.

* * *

The three of them sat quietly enjoying the cool breeze and clear, star-studded sky. Daniel seemed lost in thought and far away, but Sam had been chatting about this and that all evening. Freed from thinking constantly about how to get them off the planet, now she seemed to be full of ideas. She had plans for restructuring and modifying the tel'tak's small hold. She had strategies for executing Daniel's idea of mapping seasonal availability of food crops so that they could make the planet into their own year-round supermarket and stop depending on canned foods of dubious age scavanged from the town.

"Daniel says I should think of this as an unexpected retirement," Jack said when she paused to peel some grilled fish off its bones. That was one thing Jack was starting to hate about this place. All the fishing. And the eating of fish. It was great for the first, oh, six months, but it was really starting to get old.

"Really?" she said in surprise. "What about Plan C?"

Jack shrugged.

"Plan C or not, we've been here almost a year now, and it's gonna be a lot longer than that before we ever get off this rock."

He walked over to her log and went down on one knee.

* * *

They lay tangled together in his bed. She was sprawled over him, head resting on his shoulder, soft hair tickling his nose. It was one of his oldest, simplest dreams about her, as wonderful in life as it had been in his head. She made a contented _mmmmmmm_ sound in her sleep. Jack lay awake in the darkness, breathing her in.

* * *

They woke in the broad daylight,

She was propped on one elbow over him, tracing random patterns on his chest, smiling to herself.

A sweet, genuine smile. She had been so tired and sad over the past year. It was good to see light in her eyes again.

He was glad she'd said yes.

She laughed suddenly and flopped back onto the thin pad they'd slept on, their two bedrolls shoved together and combined now.

"What's so funny?" he asked drowsily.

"I just never would have thought I had a chance with you, with Daniel around."

"I cannot believe you just said that," he replied slowly. "Is there anything the two of you won't say these days?"

"Oh, please," she said, turning on her side to look at him, gorgeous and golden and rumpled. "Every single person on the base knows."

She sat up suddenly, looking down at him in alarm.

"Something happened between you, didn't it! You had a fight or something and broke up!" she gasped.

"Oh, fer cryin' out loud!" he said, sitting up as well, grabbing her by the shoulders and bearing her back down again into the blankets. She looked hurt and confused, the happy, relaxed look long gone.

"Nothing 'happened' between us," he said firmly. "And nobody ever 'knew' anything about me and Daniel. No more than they ever 'knew' anything about me and you, anyway."

Her expression stayed perplexed.

"So both of us..." she trailed off, as if processing the idea. "Okay. So. What made you propose to me and not him?" She sounded thoughtful, a little uncertain. "Because if you had asked me, I would have bet on Daniel. The two of you... I mean, it's got to have been there since Abydos..."

"Yeah, well," Jack hoped he didn't look as embarrassed as he suddenly felt. "Daniel pointed out how I had always wanted to get together with you and now it was possible. He made it pretty clear that I was proposing to you and he wasn't taking 'no' for an answer."

Oh. Teal'c would have been jealous of the cold look and the one lifted brow

"Look! I would have gotten around to it! Just..." He groped for words that would dig him out of the hole he was in. "Anyway, it certainly didn't seem like he was sitting there thinking, hmmm, I can finally have Jack now. You know."

The cool look turned determined again.

"Well, you need to do the right thing and work this out with him."

"Carter," he said sternly, "I told you. There's nothing to work out. Daniel's straight. I proposed to you and we got married. End of story. As far as I'm concerned, it's 'til death do us part."

"Well, forget it," she said, shoving him off and sitting up again. "I'm calling this off until you sort this out with Daniel. We both know there's something between you. Maybe Daniel hasn't recognized it. But if we're going to be here, together, for years, or forever, eventually Daniel _will_ figure it out, and I think it would be a lot better if we just deal with everything up front, don't you?"

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Fine," he said, and followed it with a quick tackle that caught her completely off guard. For some reason they always forgot how fast he was. "Tomorrow."

* * *

Jack waited for Daniel outside by the fire.

"Hungry?" Jack asked.

"Nah," Daniel replied, thumping down onto the log. The same place Sam sat two nights ago, Jack thought idly. "I found a new stash of those local power bars. Want one?" he reached for his pack, which Jack noted fondly was full of power bars and books.

He accepted the offered bar, and munched thoughtfully.

"So," said Jack.

"So?" asked Daniel.

"So," agreed Jack. "My wife's cut me off."

Daniel stared at him across the fire.

"No," he said.

"Oh, yes," said Jack with amusement.

"But it's only been two days since I left. What did you _do_?!"

"It's what I didn't do, actually," Jack said, smile fading a little. He took a deep breath and stood. He walked across to sit by Daniel on the log. He sat close to him. Not quite touching. Daniel turned his body a little to maintain eye contact.

"Did you ever hear the rumors about us?"

"Of course," Daniel said, sounding confused. "Though most people didn't think Sam would do that."

Jack's eyes narrowed. "But I would?"

Daniel shrugged with a disarming half-smile. Jack got lost a moment, watching the firelight play across his features. When Daniel's smile faded in confusion, Jack shook it off and got back on topic.

"Anyway... No, not 'us' me and Sam. 'Us' me and you."

Daniel blinked.

"So that's a no, then?"

" _Me_ and you?" Daniel said.

"Yeah. Well. Sam put a lot of stock in those rumors. So much that she cannot believe that we haven't had something going on for years."

" _Me_ and you?" Daniel repeated, sounding a little panicked.

"I tried telling her you're straight..."

" _You're_ straight!" Daniel cut him off.

"Don't make assumptions, Daniel, and quit interrupting. Anyway, I explained to her that she had it wrong, but she said she wasn't going any farther with me until you and I got our act together."

"Right. Well! That's easy to fix. I'll just tell her..." But what he was going to tell her faded away as Jack continued to stare at him. He was so handsome and touchable. Firelight made him a romantic figure. But deserts and dirt did, too. Maybe it was Jack.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Anyway, it's just the three of us now, and Sam didn't want us to get too far along before you realized what was going on."

"But... We're not... I mean, there's nothing... God, Jack!"

He stood suddenly. Not to get away from him, Jack thought, but from the restless energy that unexpected new discoveries tended to lend him. Jack rose with him and waited for the stammering babble to stop.

"So now what?" Daniel asked, rounding on him. "What do we have to do so that Sam can take you back?"

"I've already done it. She wanted me to be sure that you knew, if you had somehow managed to miss this all this time."

"And he's supposed to make you an offer."

Sam's voice made them both jump. She was sitting hidden in the shadows of the ramp up to the ship, quietly listening to their conversation.

"An offer?" Daniel squeaked.

"Yeah. It's just the three of us, Daniel," she said softly. "Whatever you want from us, you can have."

He looked back and forth between them.

"Just... none of this seems very real," he said, finally. He pointed at Jack. "You're straight. You've never done anything to suggest otherwise. And you," he pointed at Sam, "you have never been interested in me. Not like that."

Well, Jack knew what could make it more real.

He crossed the few steps separating them and stopped right in front of him. Eye to eye. Nose to nose. He had almost forgotten how great it was to do this with a guy. Sam and Sarah were both tall, but nowhere near as tall as Daniel. He slipped his arms around his waist and pulled him even closer. As Daniel's eyes widened in realization, Jack let his own eyes close as he leaned in to kiss him for the first time.

He kept it chaste and brief, but even so, when he pulled away he felt a little light-headed and giddy from the experience. He also couldn't find the nerve to open his eyes again. This was insane. Daniel was going to freak out. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. Jack felt like he needed to sit down.

"Jack?" Daniel asked him softly. Jack realized vaguely that Daniel wasn't pulling away. A gentle hand cupped Jack's cheek, fingers trailed delicately along cheekbone and temple. When Jack finally opened his eyes, he found Daniel staring at him intently with the searing curiosity that had lead to so many discoveries and brilliant realizations over the course of Daniel's eventful life.

"Come to bed?" Jack whispered.

"No. You two go up," Daniel replied, sounding calm and collected. Jack nodded, feeling a little shaky. He let Daniel go, turned and walked back to the ramp.

"Daniel," Sam began, but Jack caught her by the arm and pulled her up behind him. He hoped she understood that if he made love to her now and thought of Daniel, it was her own fault.

* * *

The store was particularly annoying because it was so familiar and yet so alien. Sometimes that was a challenge, but sometimes you just wanted to walk in and find the local equivalent of Benadryl. Unable to read the labels on the drugs, they had thus far erred on the side of caution. None of them had been sick enough to make experimenting with them worth the risk, though a bad allergy attack in the spring had Daniel making dark, nasal comments about human trials.

But now they were here looking for something they expected to be a lot easier to find.

Except it wasn’t.

"What is _with_ this place? First, no beer. And now, not a rubber to be found! How can they not have _condoms_?" Jack grumbled.

"Plenty of cultures put the burden of contraception on the woman," Daniel replied. "Not to mention the cultures that frown on certain types of fertility control – or even any."

"Or maybe they just had something they liked better," Sam commented from where she was hunting through the drawers in what seemed to be the pharmacist's office. She had rolled the pile of bones on the office chair over into the corner while she worked, kicking the ones that had fallen to the floor out of the way.

Daniel was opening and sniffing small bottles and tubes. He started scooping them into his pack. Noticing that Jack was watching him, Daniel blushed.

"What?" he demanded belligerently.

"Help yourself, Daniel," Jack said with a smirk. Daniel rolled his eyes.

Sam reappeared. She held up several bags.

"Diaphragms!" she said triumphantly, smiling brightly.

"Aren't you supposed to be fitted for those things?" Jack asked skeptically.

Sam shrugged.

"I'll pick one like the one I used to have back home."

"Aren't they worthless without spermicide?" Daniel pointed out.

Sam scowled.

Jack scowled.

Daniel sighed.

"OK, boys and girls. Time to talk about fertility awareness. And don't make faces at me! You wanna have sex like grownups, you gotta act like grownups."

Jack sidled over to Sam.

"Hey, babe. Why don't we blow this popsicle stand and find a nice comfy spot for a good, long sixty-nine?"

"I like the way you think, flyboy," she replied with a positively filthy grin.

Daniel signed dramatically.

"When you need me, I'll be at the library," he grumbled, and left.

* * *

Jack woke up suddenly, chest pounding, senses at full alert. He hadn't done that on this deserted planet in months. There were no threats here, and he knew all Sam and Daniel's night noises like they were part of him. Not to mention that he and Sam had just gone two enthusiastic rounds earlier and he should be out like a light.

He knew instantly what had woken him. He was tangled up in Sam. They were both clingy in sleep, and tonight he was collapsed on top of her, their legs tangled together, her breath ruffling his hair.

But there was another weight pressed against his back, heavy, dense and too hot.

Daniel had crawled into bed with them.

Daniel, who for days now had been behaving as if nothing had happened that night by the fire. That nothing had been said. That Jack had not kissed him. Jack thought that Daniel's curiosity had collapsed under the weight of the shock.

Jack held very still, trying to keep his breathing normal. But something had clued Daniel to his waking and he slipped away, the warm pressure gone.

Still.

Jack smiled into Sam's neck and tried to fall back asleep.

Daniel came and went after that. Some nights he stayed in his own sleeping bag, but more and more often, Jack would wake up and feel Daniel there behind him or next to him. Jack thought maybe Daniel was never asleep when Jack caught him, because Daniel always knew when Jack woke up and was gone in an instant.

* * *

They mostly tried to respect Daniel's space and made love when he wasn't there. But some nights they just couldn't keep their hands off each other. The best they could do was try to let Daniel fall asleep first. But sometimes, they couldn't bring themselves to care, as lying down to sleep led to kisses goodnight led to hot panting nasty sex. Those nights, they tried to at least keep the noise down.

It was particularly bad during what Jack had taken to facetiously calling their "special week." The one week a month when they could remotely risk real, honest, missionary position fucking.

It was a night like that.

They had been flying all day, working on their mapping project. They had made no discoveries of interest, and Jack was bored. And when Jack was bored, especially during _that special week,_ Jack's mind turned to sex. By the time their evening chores were done, it was all he could do not to throw her down and do her right there by their campfire. They made it to bed, but he wasted no time getting them both naked. She giggled and shrieked with laughter, as he started wrestling her for her clothes. Then he buried his face in the smell and taste of her. Her orgasm was long and noisy. She finally yanked him up by his hair to kiss herself on his lips, flinging her long legs around his waist and pulling him into her.

He was between her legs, pumping a smooth, steady rhythm that was making her writhe and moan under him. Then, quite unexpectedly, there was a large, heavy hand on his ass. Jack's rhythm stuttered. He slammed into Sam a little harder than he meant to. She yelped and groaned "Oh, yeah," which he filed away for future reference. He recovered quickly and curled down to kiss her. Her eyes were closed. She hadn't noticed. And selfishly, he didn't want her to see.

Daniel let his hand ride there, molded to the curve of Jack's flesh. Then he began a slow stroke of his own, over Jack's hip and waist, and up through the slick sweat along Jack's spine.

Jack's orgasm slammed into him from nowhere. He choked and collapsed onto Sam. Daniel's hand shifted, but Sam said, "Oh, fer cryin' out loud!" Out of the corner of his eye he saw her reach out and catch Daniel's wrist before he could slip away. She had to physically hold him, and for a moment the tension in her arm showed the effort she was exerting to keep him in place. Then her arm relaxed, and Jack felt Daniel lie down next to them.

He kissed the breast that pillowed his head and crawled off her and over him. Daniel was staring up at him with saucer eyes as Jack contemplated his lips, full and wet and flushed. He was hard, his erection straining against this pants and pressing eagerly into Jack's groin.

Tempted as he was, Jack didn't stay. He continued his trip to the other side of Daniel, the settled in with an arm and leg thrown over him. Sam contentedly snuggled in on the other side, sleepy after sex. With his luck, Daniel would be talker.

He woke to the feel of someone touching him. A large hand resting lightly on his chest. He turned his head to kiss Daniel's shoulder through his sleeve. He felt Daniel go from relaxed to quivering with tension at that simple gesture.

"Are you alright with this?" Jack murmured low. "You don't have to do anything Daniel."

Daniel was quiet for a long time. His hand was mostly still, just his fingers moving slightly in the hair on Jack's chest.

"I don't know anymore," Daniel finally whispered.

"I've been trying for days to make you into a sexual object... and object of desire... whatever," Daniel said slowly. "I've tried to recast our relationship from close friendship to courtship, from everyday chitchat to flirting. I've been lying down next to you at night, trying to imagine the intimacy between lovers."

The recitation left a sour taste in Jack's mouth. Well, he really didn't know what he had expected. Daniel wasn't gay. Apparently wasn't even a little bi. But trust Daniel to be the one straight guy who would actually put some serious effort into being bi-curious for the sake of a good friend with an unrequited crush.

"Look, Daniel," he whispered. "I was serious. This isn't that big a deal. I can't believe that I let Sam bully me into telling you. You don't have to do this for me."

Daniel took a deep breath and plunged on.

"I've tried masturbating while thinking about you," Jack couldn't imagine a person being more wound up. Daniel's voice was shaking. But he was meeting Jack's gaze directly through the darkness. "I put my finger..."

Jack couldn't take it anymore. He lunged up and kissed him before he could say it. Daniel moaned and leaned down over him, kissing him in near desperation. They slowly relaxed into each other, Daniel easing down next to him.

Jack could hear Sam's deep, slow almost snoring.

"So did it work?" Jack prompted, the sense memory of Daniel's hand on him still fresh enough to make him shiver.

"Sort of. Maybe," Daniel replied uncertainly, pushing himself up again. His hand still lay on Jack's chest. Daniel watched it in vague surprise, as if it were not under his own control. He dragged his palm over Jack's belly running his fingers inquisitively through the fur, then tangling them in the curls of Jack's pubic hair, the back of his hand bumping against Jack's rapidly growing erection.

"Daniel," Jack murmured in warning.

"Don't worry, Jack. I know what it does," Daniel said, smirking a little. And that helped Jack relax.

Daniel ran delicate fingers over Jack's shaft, reaching around to feel and handle the weight of Jack's testicles. He started jacking him off slowly, the first rough tight stroke drawing a whimper from Jack and making him arch his back and press himself into Daniel's weight half draped over his hip and side. He buried his face in the curve of Daniel's shoulder and after a few more strokes whispered, "Wait, wait, there's a better way." He wanted to tug him on top and grind up against him and come all over his pants and shirt. He wanted to feel the hot, wet spot when Daniel soiled the front of his pants and see the embarrassment when he changed into clean ones. He started trying to haul him over on top.

Daniel fended him off.

"I know, I know," he protested. "Stop it!"

So Jack stopped, but not before he slipped his hand down the back of Daniel's soft sleeping bottoms. As Daniel worked him, he took advantage of the opportunity to touch that perfect, sweet ass. It felt good. Hard, solid. He let his finger tips brush down the crease. He relished Daniel's surprised little gasps.

As his orgasm built, he pumped his hips into the rhythm. Daniel's hips stuttered against Jack's thigh in response. When he felt the dampness in Daniel's pants it drew his own finish out of him.

And Daniel, the little slut, put his hand up to his lips and _tasted_. Jack growled and yanked him down for a long messy kiss.

* * *

"Whatcha doin'?"

Jack whirled and had his gun on Daniel before he could stop himself. Daniel stood very still, eyes a little wide.

"Jeez! Don't sneak up on a guy!"

"Riiight. Or its bullet-between-the-eyes time," Daniel muttered.

Jack made a show of putting a hand over his thundering heart, then turned back to the tray he was studying.

"So. Whatcha doin'?"

"Nuthin'," Jack replied, just to be annoying. Then he thought, "Hey!"

He reached out and grabbed Daniel's left wrist.

"You got here just in time."

He lifted one of the larger bands from the tray and slipped it carefully onto Daniel's ring finger. Ha. Perfect fit, first try. Must be fate.

He looked up at Daniel's face. His lover was staring at the ring in surprise. Maybe startled by its sudden appearance.

"What do you think?" Jack asked quietly.

Daniel raised his eyes to Jack's. There was a soft look there. Something. Then his lips twitched at the corners.

"Very romantic. Grab me, jam a ring on my finger. I feel like I got married by mugging. You went down on one knee for Sam."

Jack raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I could still..."

"Ah! Too late!" Daniel said, raising a pre-emptory hand.

"OK, then..."Jack said thoughtfully. Daniel must have caught the gleam in his eye, because his eyes got bigger again and he began edging away. He made a sudden dash for it, but Jack was ready for him, cutting him off at the corner and shoving him up against the wall.

After a brief struggle to get Daniel's fly undone, he went down on both knees, and Daniel said "yes." Enthusiastically. A lot of times.

"What about you?" Daniel panted, slumping down the wall to sit face-to-face with his new husband.

"Give an old man a break," Jack complained, climbing back to his feet and hauling Daniel up after him. "I've got another ring to deliver and a wife back home to satisfy tonight."

Daniel snorted.

"I think that Sam would be the first to point out that..."

"Ah, ah, ah," replied Jack. "None of that. Help me pick the right size."

* * *

They had agreed that Daniel's plan to live off the land was a good one, and now they were going about the nitty-gritty of making, or at least starting, a map of available foods to help them find what they needed when they needed it.

"If we ever needed proof that we are the last humans on this planet, this is it," Daniel said. Which wasn't strictly true, Jack thought, but the smell of ripe berries was heavy in the air, and he was sure it was proof of something.

"Thanks, Dr. Bringdown," he groused and thrust a bucket at Daniel. "Go make yourself useful."

They had spent the afternoon crawling around in the dirt, but it was totally worth it.

Jack reached into the colander and pulled out a small, ripe berry. He chewed it thoughtfully, then rolled over to Sam, his companion on the blanket, and kissed her open-mouthed, feeding her the berry.

She licked the juices away, then reached behind him for a berry of her own.

It was a warm night. They spent it under the stars. In the morning, Daniel said, "You have strawberry seeds on your butt." Jack just waggled it at him, and strolled down to the water to wash.

* * *

Their database was growing. In addition to several big berry farms, they had found grains, beans, potatoes; groves of hard fruits and citrus. They had also found canned fruits and jam, as well as full silos, and milling facilities that Sam could get going if she hooked up one of her generators.

"There. Set down over there," Daniel ordered. Jack landed the tel'tak by a suspiciously orderly grove of trees. They all climbed out.

Now Sam was appraising the trees.

"I think these are cherries, don't you?" She asked, turning to Daniel. But Daniel was focused on the hedge that adjoined the orchard. From the air it had appeared to be long rows of some vine. Possibly a vineyard.

Daniel was touching the leaves, and examining the flowers.

He sauntered back over to them, smiling to himself.

"Yeah. I think you're right, Sam. How long until they're ripe, do you think?"

"Okay, Danny boy. What are you grinning about?" Jack asked suspiciously.

Daniel's face suddenly became very serious.

"Me?" He asked, the smirk lurking just at the corners of his mouth.

"You," Sam replied. She was eying the vines now, trying to figure out what they were.

"Oh, nothing," said Daniel, sounding bored, giving Jack a sidelong look out of the corner of his eye, and letting the smile creep out again. "Nothing that would interest anyone here."

Jack leaped for him, but Daniel was expecting it. He took off into the rows of vines.

"I'm not chasing you!" Sam yelled after them in laughing exasperation. "And take your pants off this time!" She bellowed. "I'm on laundry duty this week!" Up ahead of him, Daniel positively cackled in glee.

Jack had to hand it to him. The man could run. But he also wanted to be caught. After running full-out through a damned field, Jack didn't really feel bad when his flying tackle left Daniel a little winded. As Daniel gasped for breath through his laughter, Jack ground down against that enticing, tight ass.

Oh, yeah. Now was the time.

"You heard her, Daniel, pants off!"

With some squirming, they were flesh to flesh. Daniel was on his hands and knees and Jack was kneeling behind him.

Suddenly, more than anything in the world, Jack wanted to be planted to the balls in Daniel. He ran his hands possessively over Daniel's butt and thighs. Daniel shifted a little nervously, but Jack had ended up kneeling on Daniel's shoved-down pants, so the man below him was effectively pinned.

"Jack?" Daniel whispered.

"That's me," he replied soothingly, just before he buried his face in Daniel's gorgeous ass.

The first touch of his tongue practically made Daniel leap out of his skin, but then it was all nasty slurping and panting whimpers. He started finger-fucking him as he tongued him and it wasn't too hard. When Jack bumped his gland, Daniel nearly collapsed into a puddle of melted sex. All he had was spit for lube, but Daniel was so relaxed at this point that it worked like a charm.

He was slow and careful entering him, but Daniel was ready for it, his body accepting Jack's intrusion easily, Daniel hissing out a breath and grunting, but then writhing wantonly under the combined stimulation of his perineum and prostate.

Jack had known it would be good. In their explorations, it was clear that Daniel, straight or not, was hardwired for ass fucking – beautifully sensitive in all the right places. As Jack set up a cautious rhythm, Daniel started moaning, and only got louder as it went on. When Jack finally started pumping Daniel's dick, he exploded with a full-throated yell, collapsing into the grass and dirt. Jack pounded him another half a dozen times and lost it.

He lay there, crushing Daniel into the ground, considering having a nap, when he realized Daniel was giggling. The giggling was causing him to gasp for air, and he started struggling under Jack's weight. Jack rolled off onto his back.

Daniel rolled over too, so that they now lay, side by side, looking up at the sky through the tendrils of the hedges growing on either side of them.

Daniel lifted a lazy arm to point at the plants.

"You know what those are?" he asked, rolling up onto an elbow and looking at Jack.

"What?" Jack asked gamely.

" _Humulus lupulus_ ," Daniel said solemnly, with a grin tugging the corners of his mouth.

"Don't make do that again, or you won't be walking straight for days, virgin boy," Jack growled threateningly, reaching down to palm his still half-hard cock.

Daniel's grin grew, as he cut his eyes down toward Jack's crotch.

"Your interrogation techniques are _terrible_ ," Daniel chided him. "But I'll tell you anyway. Those, Colonel O'Neill, are hops."

He grinned smugly.

"Hops? As in key-ingredient-in-beer hops?"

"Those would be the ones," Daniel agreed.

Jack sat up grinning, tugging one of the branches down so he could look at it.

"So how do we do it?!" Jack crowed.

* * *

Jack found him in what was clearly the rare books room. All the volumes were leather-bound and the room had that old books smell. Many were behind glass and the rest were in stacks that lined the walls all the way up to the twenty-foot ceilings. The lower shelves were behind intricate wrought iron gates.

The carpeting was rich and plush, and the reading tables and chairs were heavy wood heavily carved. The tables were topped with a light, beautifully flecked granite. The windows appeared to be studded with colored glass, that cast rainbows randomly around the room.

It was a room to inspire learning, study and awe.

Daniel was across the room. He was a few steps up on the rolling stairway contraption that gave access to the higher shelves of the stacks. He was wearing a pair of those tight, clingy pants in a soft dark blue fabric. Daniel had found a store full of that stuff about a year ago and now he hardly wore anything else. Daniel said the fabric was comfortable. Jack thought the pants were hot. He suspected Daniel knew that.

Jack was suddenly feeling a heck of a lot of inspiration. And awe. Loads of awe.

"Hey," he said softly, not wanting to startle him.

Daniel turned and gave him a grin.

"Heard you coming."

Jack didn't even start the argument. He didn't bother anymore. Someday, the footsteps in the hall might belong to somebody besides himself or Sam and it drove him crazy that Daniel didn't even bother to glance up anymore, but Daniel wasn't really a constant vigilance kind of guy. Hopefully, if it was ever anybody else, they would be friendlies.

Jack refused to be distracted by this old worry. He turned his attention to the books around him. He was inspired. Inspiration should be acted upon.

"Whatcha doin' in here, anyway?" he asked, by way of small talk. He went over to a horizontal display case under the windows. Ah. There was what he wanted. A _huge_ leather bound volume, with a carved leather cover. Jack took out his utility knife and popped the simple lock so he could slide the lid to the side.

"Hoping that I'll find a book in here that's rare because it is in a text I can read," Daniel replied absently.

Jack lifted his find out of the case. It felt like it weighted fifty pounds. He lugged it over to the end of the nearest reading table. It was positioned under the center window, and rainbows fell all across its surface. Jack opened the book. The sides extended over the edges of the wide tabletop. The pages were done in hand-drawn calligraphy, gold leaf decorating the letters, drawings hand colored.

It was a work of art.

Daniel appeared at his shoulder, attracted by whatever had attracted Jack's attention. He was smiling softly, but when he caught the look on Jack's face, his expression quickly shifted to suspicious.

Jack stepped up to him and touched the side of his face. Daniel almost stepped back or flinched away. This kind of intimacy was still new enough that it caught Daniel by surprise when Jack brought it into an unexpected context. But here they were, no one to see today, not even Sam, so why not indulge in his every desire to touch Daniel, inside or outside, kiss him while he was studying, or catch his hand in the street, or press him up against a tree to enjoy a little friction. There was so much they couldn't have here. Jack refused to forego one of the few, amazing things he _could_ have.

Jack caught Daniel around the waist with a long arm. Daniel was getting better at this, because after the initial surprise, he didn't stiffen or resist. He came willingly, a new, even happier smile on his face as he reached up to create symmetry, his fingers tracing Jack's neck and jaw.

"Did you need something?" Daniel drawled, voice rich and amused.

"You. Naked. Five minutes ago," Jack growled.

"Oh. Well. I missed the window then," replied Daniel, assuming a disappointed air.

"Luckily, the program plans for the tardiness of its sexiest archaeologist," Jack said, and without further ado, went to his knees, hooking his thumbs in the waist of Daniel's pants on the way down and taking them with him as he went. Daniel laughed a surprised laugh, steadying himself reflexively by placing his open palm on the page of the book, only to yank it away like he'd singed it. The hand landed squarely on the back of Jack's head instead.

Which was fine by him. He was already busy with Daniel's cock, which was rapidly swelling, nudging him on the chin, then the cheek. He licked and teased and nuzzled, 'til there were slicks of precum and his own saliva on his face. He leaned in to suck one of Daniel's testicles.

"Jack!" Daniel panted. "Just get on with it. I don't think I can stand up much longer if you keep going like that."

Jack surged to his feet, grinning.

He brazenly slapped the open pages of the book.

"Put your ass there, Danny boy."

Daniel was horrified.

Jack slipped out of his coat and folded it to make a pillow. The book would make a lovely bed. He turned and pressed up against Daniel again, grinding against him, kissing his neck.

"Tonight, I want Sam to ask how you got gold pieces and ink stains all over your back and purple paint on your butt."

Daniel jerked away and crossed his arms, scowling defiantly. Which was a really interesting look with the massive hard on he was sporting. Jack found it disturbingly hot, actually. He took the pause as an opportunity to lose his shirt and start on his pants.

"No! I won't! I don't care if we are the last people who see this civilization before it crumbles to dust. We have an obligation to these people, Jack!"

Inwardly, Jack sighed. He wouldn't. There was no point in pursuing it any further.

He kicked off his boots and pants, and turned to the table. He rearranged so that the book went where the jacket-pillow was, and the jacket became a cover to separate cold stone from hot flesh. The turned to Daniel.

"There." He walked up and took Daniel by the erection, so that his eyes grew large and he fluttered his crossed arms a bit. "Don't make me pick you up and put you on that table," he murmured, tugging a little on his handful, smirking a little as he lead Daniel by the dick over to the table where he could tip him backwards and leer down at him.

They had done this a few times in a practical way – doggie style, to make it easier, so that Daniel could get used to being fucked. And that was good. Thinking about it always made Jack's dick weep. But here, in this place, with rainbows playing over Daniel's belly and thighs, Jack wanted to make love to him. Make love to him in a place of beauty and knowledge. A place where learning was a puzzle to be solved, a prize to be won.

Daniel was watching him somewhat apprehensively. It was still new, and they hadn't done this position yet. Jack wondered if Daniel had even considered this way was possible. Probably. There was plenty of perverted stuff in ancient cultures. Daniel could probably tell him what they were about to do in Greek, Latin, and Ancient Egyptian. He'd probably just never thought about actually _doing_ it before.

Jack gently caught him under one thigh and urged him to lift his leg up to hook his ankle over Jack's shoulder. He turned his head to kiss the hard bone there, the inside of Daniel's calf, the soft inner thigh above the knee. Then he slipped his hand under the other thigh, and kept pushing until he could place soft licks and kisses and nibbles on the back of his knee.

Well. Jack hadn't known before, but he certainly did now. He had Daniel writhing now, book, table, and library probably all completely forgotten and Daniel squirmed and wriggled. He was panting and moaning.

And begging.

"Oh... ungh..... please... oh, yeah, oh, please, like that... Jack!"

Jack fumbled in the pocket of the jacket under Daniel til he found the little sachet of lubricant. The luridly explicit packaging had made it one item in the drug store they had no problem identifying.

By the time he started teasing Daniel's hole, the man was practically thrusting himself down on Jack's finger. With Daniel reacting like that, he didn't waste a lot of time getting in. Daniel's whole body arched as Jack pressed home and he gave a long whine, then Jack pulled back again and he growled. As Jack set up a rhythm, for the first time he got to see the beauty of Daniel getting fucked. No defenses. Nothing to hold onto or hide behind. He had extended his arms back over his head, sprawled over the book, sometimes gripping the edge of its cover, sometimes curling his arms over his face, only to throw them open again when Jack stroked over his prostate or gave his dick a twisting pull.

He was chanting Jack's name. Breathing it. And when he came, he arched one last time and yelled it.

"Jack!"

His cum was ribbons of white, splattering Daniel, the jacket, and the book.

* * *

Jack approached the edge of the campsite, having taken a detour to collect the fish he'd left in the water.

"What's that in your hair?" he heard Sam ask Daniel.

"Hmmmmm?" Daniel replied distractedly. Jack walked over to set the fish by their fire. Daniel was studying one of his board books.

"Is that... glitter?!"

Jack snickered.

* * *

The fermentation was finally done and they had been tasting and bottling their first batch of beer all day. He was well and thoroughly soused, and couldn't be happier about it. He had just enough coordination left to carry the crated bottles from their fermenter to the tel'tak without dropping them or falling over his own feet.

Daniel hadn't had that much coordination in over an hour, Jack thought in amusement.

He was coming up on the camp when he heard them arguing.

"This isn't working," he heard Sam say belligerently.

No way was he mixing in. He set his crate down behind a convenient patch of trees, pulled out a bottle, and popped the cork as he sat down. It was weird for beer to have a cork and he would rather it was cold, but hey. Beer.

Sam was angry and Daniel was giggling. Though he though maybe Danny was sobering up pretty fast.

"What's not working?" Daniel said, in a passable attempt to pretend he was sober.

"You never sleep with us," she declared, pointing an accusatory finger. "You always run off, and then Jack follows you like you're a bitch in heat. I have no idea what the two of you get up to. It's like you're having an affair. Jack's cheating on me."

Uh, oh. This was bad. Jack cringed and set his bottle down.

"Sam, how can he be cheating on you? This was your idea, if you remember. The thought hadn't even occurred to me until the two of you created this..." he gestured vaguely.

"Well, I didn't think we were going to be two couples – the two of us, with Jack in the middle. I thought we would do this together. You know, all of us." She sounded weepy. She'd gone from angry to maudlin in a heartbeat. Definitely drunk.

"I didn't understand that you felt like that," Daniel replied, all sympathy and concern. He walked over to Sam's chair and pulled her up into a comforting hug. At least, Jack thought it was meant to be comforting. Sam clearly had other plans.

She was all over him. And although Daniel seemed a bit taken by surprise, it wasn't long til he was giving as good as he got. They were kissing wet, nasty kisses, her hands buried in his shaggy hair, his fingers nimbly undoing every fastener they came across til he had undressed both of them, more or less, and they were making out in the dusk on the blankets by the fire. For a while Jack was tempted just to stay right where he was and enjoy the porn, but the sight of Daniel's naked dick and his tongue licking Sam's perfect nipples brought him out of hiding. Jack figured they couldn't possibly mind if he got in on the action.

Though the action was moving quickly and Sam was riding Daniel hard, just the way she liked it, before Jack even had his boots off.

"Pervert," she said sweetly. "I wondered if you were even going to bother coming out of the bushes."

He just grinned and finished getting naked.

Daniel's choked cry brought their eyes back to him. He sat up and grabbed her around the shoulders, shuddering into her and she laughed breathlessly until he stopped her with a long, passionate kiss.

Daniel slumped backwards, taking her with him. As they shifted position, he slipped out. The view was so good that rather than disturb them, Jack just shoved his way between two uncooperative pairs of legs and entered her from behind. She groaned in satisfaction, and Jack almost lost it like a teenager, surprised at the hot slickness of Daniel's cum inside her. He didn’t bother with finesse and certainly didn't hold back. Sam liked it rough when he did her from behind. She claimed she got the best orgasms that way. And soon enough she was muffling her yells in Daniel's shoulder. Jack came to the sound of Daniel's laughter.

All-in-all, it was some of the best sex he had ever had.

He couldn't even bring himself to regret it the next morning when a thoroughly hung over Sam said, flinging her cycle beads on the ground, "Nobody even _thought_ to ask the drunk girl if she remembered what day of the month it was?!" then stomped off to vomit in the bushes by Jack's crate and refused to talk to them for three days.

Because after the three days, they always slept together. All three of them. And that made up for a lot of bad shit.

* * *

Sam stood in the doorway, tipped back a little to balance her huge belly. Sunlight flooded the huge store.

She turned to Daniel and grinned broadly.

"It's all mine!" she crowed delightedly. Baby supplies. Toys. Clothes. Equipment and furnishings. Everything from shelves of disposable diapers to teething rings to training potties.

As she took it all in, her smile dimmed a little.

"It's completely wrong for me to think that, isn't it?"

 _Probably,_ Jack thought.

"Of course not," Jack said, with his best sweet, reassuring smile.

Sam lightened up as Jack came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her huge belly, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"OK, don't forget where we parked! So what do we need first?"

"Diapers," said Daniel emphatically, and headed toward the back of the store with confidence. Jack watched him go and realized something.

Daniel had picked this place and lead them to this treasure trove of baby wonders.

Daniel knew exactly where the diapers were.

Daniel had been off for a couple of days working on some project or other about which he had been very vague and made only the most confusing explanations.

They had assumed that he was just scouting for a place. But Jack could not see a single human skeleton anywhere in sight.

Jack was suddenly very sure about what Daniel had been doing.

Daniel had spent two days removing the skeletons of babies and children from this store. He had gone through it aisle by aisle, respectfully carrying away mothers and fathers and babies and children as a gift to Sam, so her delight in this day wouldn't be spoiled.

She trundled off to the clothes, making delighted noises.

Daniel emerged from the depths of the store with a box of diapers under each arm.

"I'm pretty sure I've got the numbering system down. These are the big sizes..."

Jack cut him off, striding forward and meeting him, grabbing his face, lacing his fingers through his hair, and kissed him within an inch of his life.

"Jeez, get a room," Sam said in amusement as she walked by with an armload of clothing.

* * *

At the end of the day, the cargo hold was neatly packed with all the supplies they could possibly need for child-rearing for at least, oh, five years or so.

It was reassuring, in a way, to see all the cargo cases, carefully labeled and packed in the order that they would be needed, clothes and shoes for an older child behind, infant supplies and layette near the front. It made their living space smaller, and it might actually start to feel a little tight once Sam had finished the nursery, which she was presently enclosing in a huge play yard and which included a child bed of Sam's own design and a number of other accoutrements. Their baby would be provided for in high style, even if _they_ would have to sleep on the floor and fold up their bed every morning to have any room to make breakfast.

Which reminded him that it was his turn to fold out the mattress and make the bed. Daniel turned to the task with a smile, though he felt a hollowness inside. An ache. He took the bed-maker's prerogative and chose to sleep in the middle, their two hot bodies draped around him not quite enough to keep the tiny ghosts away.

* * *

"Do you think we should be worried?" Sam whispered loudly, propping her chin on Jack's chest to look at Daniel and his new toy.

"I dunno," he replied in his own stage whisper.

"Oh, cut it out, guys. I just like it," Daniel said in exasperation. He cradled his little friend to his bare chest with a large protective hand.

"Have you been holding out on us all this time, Daniel?" Sam asked. "Do you have a secret closet full of your stuffed animal collection back home?"

Jack wondered if it said something about his state of mind that the mention of home didn't even twinge at all. Naked Sam plus naked Daniel – apparently the cure for homesickness.

Daniel propped himself up on his elbows to look down at the toy.

"Well, just look at it. It's so... weird. And alien. There's nothing like this thing on Earth. Think of all the unique animals that used to live on this planet. "

"It looks like a cross between a squirrel and a turtle," Sam said dubiously. It did. It had a big fluffy long tail and a furry friendly face with little alert pointed ears and long whiskers. All wrapped up in a heavy brown shell.

"A squirtle," Jack agreed.

Sam snorted.

"You do realize that's the name of a Pokémon character?" Sam asked. When both of them stared at her she huffed defensively. "Cassie went through a stage, OK?"

"So maybe he's just the star of this place's most popular Saturday morning cartoon," Jack suggested, grinning to himself. Then he realized what he had just said.

The silence was thick, then naked Daniel and naked Sam both sat up, staring at each other with that moment-of-geek-realization intensity that Jack was finding disturbingly hot.

"Holy Hannah!" Sam said, just as Daniel said, "How could we have been so _stupid_?"

"Time to go and find the alien VCR's?" Jack asked with an air of longsuffering that was a complete sham. What better did he have to do with his time that watch a little alien TV?

* * *

It turned out that the aliens spoke some seriously bastardized Chinese. After Sam got him a power source hooked up, Daniel was like a madman, searching for source material. Now that they knew what the media looked like, Daniel knew exactly what store he wanted.

He hit on the alien version of Sesame Street, and he was riveted for hours. It had been so long since Daniel had a solvable problem, Jack had forgotten exactly what it was like – the muttering, the distractibility, the piles of notes.

He had been at it for about a week when Sam went into labor.

* * *

"I want to have the baby under the sky," Sam said one morning as she lay on her side. The baby was restless, kicking against Jack's hand.

"Seriously?" mumbled Daniel from behind him. He felt Daniel shift up and peer over him at Sam. Sam was not usually the poetic sort. But Jack liked the idea.

"Yeah," she said. "We've got the whole place to ourselves. Why not? Besides, all the gross stuff can stay outside and we won't have to clean up in here."

Jack laughed. There was the practical woman he had married.

But he could tell that Daniel liked the idea, too.

* * *

For the first time in his life, Jack was glad that Sarah had insisted on natural childbirth with Charlie.

"What is the point of coming to the big, shiny, modern, _civilian_ hospital if she's not gonna use the good drugs?" he had muttered to one of the nurses (far, far from where Sarah could hear him), who had given him a sympathetic smile before ruthlessly shoving him through the door of the delivery room.

But now, as Sam trembled and yelled, Jack at least knew what to expect. Jack was helping Sam stand and Daniel, with healthier knees and more technical training, was in the catcher's position.

"Come on, Sam. I can see the baby! Just one more"

Jack felt her shuddering with the effort, and then Daniel had a lap full of slimy, howling baby boy.

* * *

Jack washed the baby and wrapped him in a soft blanket then brought him to his mother. Sam and Daniel had dealt with the placenta, but Daniel was hovering, the little worry furrow between his eyebrows.

"Here's your Mommy," Jack murmured to the baby. He laid the little boy by his mother, who lifted the light shirt she was wearing to offer him her breast. He latched on immediately, and Jack saw some of Sam's nervousness ease.

"Jack," Daniel said.

He looked up.

"Do you hear something?"

Jack listened.

"Not exactly," he said slowly, rising to stand next to Daniel.

"What's that?" Daniel asked, pointing to a dark, moving line traveling at some speed across the gently rolling plain.

"I don't know, but I'm not waiting around to find out," Jack said, whirling to survey their hilltop. "Sam, we're getting out _now_."

Daniel was already moving. There was nothing vital out here in the open, Jack was glad to see. Daniel scooped the baby out of Sam's arms and handed him off to Jack, who hauled ass the hundred yards or so to the ramp of the tel'tak and kept right on running. He deposited his protesting bundle on his own little bed and brought the engines up, watching the line that seemed to be accelerating towards them.

Then it disappeared.

"Daniel!" he yelled, but he already heard him thundering up the ramp.

He spared a glance backward to see him carrying Sam, who slapped the controls to close the ship behind them even as she yelled, "Put me down, dammit!"

Jack had them in the air before the door closed.

The ground where they had been erupted. It was suddenly seething with masses of black insects. They didn't seem to be able to fly, so Jack hovered at about two hundred feet and brought up one of the few instruments the damaged ship still had that actually worked. He focused the camera on the creatures and started taking footage.

Daniel settled Sam and the baby on their bed, then joined Jack at the viewscreen.

"They have a marking. Look," Daniel said, zooming the camera in even closer. It looked to Jack like a knife, with a short blade and a ceremonial hilt.

"Mean anything to you?" Jack asked.

Daniel squinted at it.

"Reminds me of an ankh, a little bit. But no, not really. Sort of looks like a person dancing." Jack tipped his head to the side, looking at it again.

"Goa'uld, ya think?" Jack asked, though it seemed obvious to him it must be some new biological warfare. And yet. It didn't have the goa'uld flair for self-aggrandizement. With a weapon like this, nobody was left behind to fear and worship them.

"I hope not," Daniel said fervently. They were both thinking the same thing. This planet could have been Earth, America, even, with its megastores and high-rise apartment buildings and industrial farming and beautiful university campuses. Colorado Springs did not want to meet these bugs.

"Okay. So if not a goa'uld, then who?"

"Maybe something native?" Daniel suggested. They both stared in sickened fascination at the activity on the screen.

"So why did they suddenly show up?" Jack asked. "We've been here close to three years and never seen one. There must be thousands of them down there."

"The blood?" Daniel said. Which was, of course, the obvious answer.

"We gut fish all the time. They've never noticed that."

Daniel shrugged. "They don't eat fish."

"True enough," Jack agreed.

The swarming bugs were mesmerizing.

Then they started forming a tower.

"Jack!" Daniel said, voice climbing the register toward panic.

"I see it," Jack replied tightly, already pulling the tel'tak out of its hover higher into the sky. "Crap, crap, crap," he muttered under his breath. Was this the end of their safe sojourn on this dead, deserted planet?

He took the ship into orbit where they stayed for two days. When he finally decided to land, he chose an entirely different hemisphere.

* * *

The baby lay sleeping on their pallet. Jack was propped up over him, watching the little fist curled around his pinky finger. Sam was lying on the other side of their new addition, smiling at them tiredly but happily. Daniel was sitting cross-legged behind her, smiling, too. They were SG-1, Jack thought. A little life threatening peril just came with the territory. Nothing to distract them from something as wonderful as their new baby.

 _Their_ baby, Jack was certain. The boy's crystal blue eyes were not the deep slate gray that darkened to brown. And his white blond hair might one day change, but still. Jack was sure.

"So what are you going to name him?" Daniel asked.

Sam looked to Jack. So he smiled and tugged on the little fist and said, "Carter Jackson O'Neill."

Daniel snorted. Sam grinned.

"I like it," she protested, slapping her hand half-heartedly at Daniel's knee. He caught it and kissed her fingers, but he was eyeing Jack dubiously.

"Hey," Jack said, "There was a lot of genetic material around that night, is all I'm saying." He leaned over and kissed Carter's smooth forehead.

"He's ours," Sam said, pressing back against Daniel's knees.

Daniel looked worried. But Jack wasn't.

* * *

Days came and went. The baby grew. Sam got back on her feet and went into full nesting mode, turning their little home upside down with baby furnishings and new comforts for all of them. For weeks after their encounter with the bugs, they were reluctant to spend any more time outside the ship than was absolutely necessary.

But they still had to scavenge for supplies and Daniel still needed source material for his language study. Eventually, the initial shock of seeing the bugs in action wore off, and they began to venture farther afield again.

Today, Jack was out alone. He was experiencing his own unique nesting instincts, and they told him that Daniel was going to succeed and they were going to find the Stargate, maybe sooner rather than later, and the Carter-Jackson-O'Neills needed to be ready to walk out into a universe that might be radically changed from the one they left behind three years ago.

For one thing, they weren't going to be dialing straight home. Not without IDC codes. It was going to take some time and careful reconnaissance to make all the connections that would get them back to Earth.

And that meant they were going to need funds.

Which is what had Jack scouting all new towns like a looter, picking up portable valuables wherever he found them.

And once he started looking, they were easy to find. He came back from almost every expedition to anywhere with a pocket full of gold and large gemstones.

But he never stole a ring off a boney finger and he always thanked the dead on his way out.

* * *

Carter was toddling under the massive trees of a huge, silent rainforest. There were a few humming insects. A few birds, mournfully singing. Some splashing, chirping amphibians in the pools made by the rivulets running down the stony side of the steep hill. And then there was Carter, of course. He was toddling early, and was every bit his Abba's son, chattering away constantly. Daniel insisted he had heard three languages at least.

"He says 'ba' in English," Daniel stated. Jack rolled his eyes. Right now, under the trees, there was Carter, chasing his 'ba!'.

"And 'ma' in Spanish," Daniel went on.

"'Ma' is me!" Sam declared in outrage. "He points and says 'Ma!' to get my attention!"

"No," Daniel disagreed. "He points and says 'ma' in Spanish, for 'mas.' You're 'Mama.' He says your name all the time, too," he finished up placatingly.

Sam did not look completely mollified.

"And of course, he says 'fron’..." Daniel said, eyeing Jack suspiciously. Jack just gently tossed the ba to Carter, who squealed with laughter as it bounced softly off his fron.

Anyway, the wet forest was full of soft sounds and Carter, shrieking and running. But the area was smoothly flagged and hardly showed any weathering, so Jack just enjoyed the scenery. They didn't let Carter out enough. They still worried about the hidden dangers of the planet. Not to mention that he had to be stopped from playing with the bones.

They were on the grounds of what was clearly a large university. Over the last eighteen months, Daniel had gotten enough handle on the written language to figure some things out, and there had been a professor here who was pictured in a journal wearing an amulet around his neck that looked awfully like an Eye of Ra. Daniel had them tracking this place down the very next day, and a week later, here they were.

Daniel came pelting down the stairs, Sam hard on his heels, yelling at him to "Wait, dammit!"

"Jack!" he yelled.

Jack was on his feet instinctively, but Sam's gusty laughter as she chased their lover was enough to tell him there was nothing to be worried about.

Carter squealed again and went lumbering full tilt toward his Abba. Daniel scooped him up and swung him over his head.

Sam stood panting at Jack's side.

"I take it you found something?" he said casually. Her grin had enough wattage to power a small town.

* * *

The Eye of Ra prof connected them to some guy with a drawing of a gate. That lead them to yet another researcher with a zat and a symbiote in a canopic jar. They were following clues for months. But it was better than Daniel's old map-the-crops idea for a way to spend their free time, so Jack paid attention and learned what he could about the language and the leads.

Now they were visiting a smallish college that was supposedly some sort of archaeology mecca on this planet. Daniel and Sam were scouring the library for anything that could give them more about where to find the Gate. Daniel was certain there was one, now, and that it was being researched, but they had yet to find any books about it specifically, just oblique references to the work in writings about other things.

The afternoon was sunny with big puffy white clouds floating in the perfectly clear, amazingly blue sky. He had been chasing a shrieking Carter through the tall grass for nearly an hour as they waited for Daniel and Sam to explore this new library. Now Carter was napping next to him, completely exhausted, sometimes muttering and sighing in his sleep. A nap seemed like a good idea to Jack, too. He was just resettling his cap to cover his face when the radio clicked over.

"Jack!" murmured Daniel in his ear. Jack was on his feet and scooping Carter up in his arms on that one word. That was Daniel's I'm-not-panicking voice, and that was zat fire in the background. "Jack, I've got a little problem here. You need to get Carter and get airborne now." More zat fire.

"Already on it. What's going on, Daniel?" His heart was pounding as the ramp closed behind him. He deposited Carter in his bed, hurtled the play yard wall and landed in the command chair, rushing to get the ship off the ground.

"Daniel! Do you see them?!" Sam was panicking, and Jack had forgotten just how unpleasant the adrenaline rush could be. In the background, before the radio clicked off again, he heard Daniel's voice, far away, yelling "Sam!! They're everywhere!"

"The bugs found us," Daniel said, panting now. "The zat works on them..." Daniel suddenly shrieked and Jack heard a loud thud. When he came back, his voice was strained, and he was talking louder and faster, no longer even trying to hide the fear. "...but there's a lot of them, Jack. We're not going to be able to hold them..." Another yelp, and more thumping. "Jack! Sam just went down! I can't see her!! Sam!" The radio went dead.

"Where are you, Daniel?" Jack demanded, trying to keep calm, but his hands were shaking. It had been a long time. The tel'tak was swooping down on the big library building already.

"By a window on the fifth floor, west side. You'll be able to spot us because I just threw a table through." Yelps, gasps and one scream punctuated Daniel's reply. Oh, God. Jack knew what Daniel was going to do.

"I'm on my way, Daniel. Just keep shootin' 'em!" Jack begged. He maneuvered around to the west side of the building.

"I've got something you need, Jack. I'm..." Then he gave a horrifying scream and the radio cut out.

There was Daniel's window. But it was too late. Daniel had already jumped. His body was crumpled on the pavement. Bugs were already swarming down the side of the building after him. All Jack could do was bring the big ship over him protectively and ring him up.

Bugs materialized with him, of course. Jack had a split second to decide how to deal with the situation. Daniel had just jumped from a fifth story window. Even if he was still breathing, his injuries were going to be massive and extensive. And Jack could already see bone where the huge insects had eaten through Daniel's boot and flesh. Jack didn't hesitate. He fired twice. All the bugs were dead.

He ran back to the pel'tak, keying the radio as he went.

"Carter. Report."

He was lifting the vessel so that he could see into the broken window. He flooded the library with the exterior lights of the tel'tak.

There was a seething heap of bugs on the floor. He stared long enough to be certain he was seeing bloody bone protruding from the pile before he backed out and took himself into orbit.

* * *

He propped Daniel against the tree, and laid Sam by his side. It was peaceful there on the hill, as Jack arranged Daniel's body next to her. Carter stood obediently on the ramp, waiting. The little boy was solemn and uncharacteristically quiet. Jack finally went over to pick him up. He wasn't light anymore, but Jack was used to him, and he was an easy weight on his hip.

He slithered down to stand by Daniel's body. He reached out and touched his father's face. Then he took Jack's hand and led him back, which was good, because Jack couldn't see anymore for the tears.

* * *

Of course, what Daniel had saved from the library when he jumped was a book.

An armful of them actually. They had scattered on the pavement around his broken body, the bugs ignoring them in favor of flesh.

They were dense books with few illustrations.

Daniel had saved them, so they must be important.

So Jack set to work on them, spending his days with Carter, keeping them in food, and whenever Carter lay down for a nap or went to bed at night, Jack opened the books and started reading.

Carter was three and a half (and reading, proof perfect of who is father was) when they figured it out together.

* * *

The kawoosh bloomed out and Carter jumped. His eyes were very wide.

"Don't be afraid," Jack said.

The little boy grinned at him.

"You told me a zillion times!" he said. "It's going to be all cold and hard to breathe, then in about half a minute we'll be on the other side."

Jack held his hand a little tighter. He adjusted his heavy pack. Checked Carter's little one.

They stepped through the event horizon together.

* * *

 _Epilogue_

Cam was never quite sure how he fell into bed with General Jack O'Neill.

Don't ask, don't tell was history, by that time, of course. And O'Neill had just blasted the Ori off the face of the universe with Merlin's weapon. SG-1 – himself, Sheppard, McKay, and Mal Doran – sat around O'Neill's living room a couple of weeks later getting drunker than skunks, telling war stories to Carter until he had to be tucked into bed. The other three slipped out early, and O'Neill settled into a sort of hazy, drunken misery. Cam knew that look, and he hated to abandon the man who had saved the Earth so many times people had lost count. So he stayed.

"They're fucking, you know," O'Neill said, tipping his head back and staring at the ceiling.

"No, sir, I know no such thing," Cam stated crisply. And he didn't know. He had plausible deniability in spades. Partially because he'd told Sheppard that if he ever got real proof, there was gonna be Hell to pay.

"It's not so bad," O'Neill said wistfully.

And suddenly Cam understood everything.

That night he slept in O'Neill's bed.

* * *

"Don't let them bury me in that," O'Neill said one night, eying his Class A's where he had left them draped haphazardly over the armchair in the corner before Cam had fucked him into the carpet.

"Do you mind if I ask why not?" replied Cam.

"I retired a couple of times. They always called me up again. I figure, when I'm dead, I'm retired. Retirement's for fishing clothes."

"You hate fishing," Cam said.

"No, I don't hate it. I miss it."

O'Neill pushed himself up from the floor and wandered into the bathroom to clean up.

"Nobody _gets_ me around here anymore," Cam heard him muttering to himself.

Sam, Jackson, and the Jaffa grinned down from the picture frame on the dresser. Cam snorted.

Nobody gets him, his Aunt Fanny. Sure, O’Neill had been plenty surprised to see “Hank!” — with stars on his shoulders — when he stepped back through to Earth with his kid. But of course with SG-1 gone for six years, they had had to be replaced. The SGC had recruited Sheppard for his ATA gene, McKay for his physics genius, Vala for her galactic contacts, and Cam, Cam had stepped in to lead after Col. Reynolds had died protecting Sheppard and the Chair in Antarctica. The turnover in personnel at the SGC was ridiculously high for a deep-space radar telemetry facility.

But Sgts. Siler and Harriman were always happy to lunch with O’Neill, and he popped round to visit with General Hammond, Ret., often enough. Besides, Cam got O’Neill plenty. Cam’d never be original SG-1, but he understood.

* * *

The inscription on the stele read, "Hallowed are the Ori. Witness the fate of those who do not accept the word of Origin." Over which had been scrawled, in a horrid, and apparently very permanent, green paint, "Dead are the Ori."

They finally ran into the wrong unbeliever, Cam thought to himself. They should have checked in with the goa'uld before trying to muscle in on Jack O'Neill's galaxy.

The tel'tak was right were O'Neill had left it. The small party moved swiftly, opening the ramp with the remote, which still worked, and moving themselves and their burden aboard as quickly as possible.

Everything was freakishly quiet.

The navigation computer came online, and McKay was able to find what they were looking for right away.

They were there together under the trunk of a massive tree. Daniel's skeleton had long ago fallen into an undisturbed heap next to Sam's, a few tattered shreds of uniform still there.

Carter stood at the base of the ramp, tears dripping from his nose and tracking down his cheeks. SG-1, pall bearers yet again, brought the casket down the ramp. They set it by the skeletal remains at the base of the tree.

"He should be with them," Carter said suddenly. His voice in the silent place was a shock. "He shouldn’t be in that box."

Cam looked at Sheppard, who grimaced and shrugged. They worked the lid off the coffin and then the two of them lifted O'Neill's body out.

The four of them took the casket away. Then on a sudden impulse Cam said to Sheppard, "Help me," and they moved Jack so that he sat propped against the tree between his two lovers.

Mal Doran and McKay were standing by Carter now. As Cam turned, the boy's face crumpled, and he turned away to walk quickly back into the ship. SG-1 followed, leaving the dead in peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this, I figured the timeline would have started soon after the time loop. SG-1 would have fallen off the map. Hammond would have been forced to reconstitute the team. Sheppard would have been recruited for his ATA gene. Vala would have been brought in as a consultant after Nyan took over leadership of SG-11. They would have brought Rodney into the program to replace Sam. Mitchell would have gotten the leadership spot after Reynolds bought it in Antartica protecting Sheppard from supersoldiers. Jack would have been gone about six years. Sheppard would have dealt with Anubis, and Jack would walk back into an SGC desperately trying to track down Merlin and his weapon to fight the Ori, who returned after Anubis' tipped them off to the Ancients' new hiding place. Once Jack got personally involved with that mission, the Ori wouldn’t stand a chance.


End file.
